1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the polishing of gemstones by lapidary means, and more particularly, to a vibratory polishing system that polishes flat surfaces by vibratory means.
2. Description of Prior Art
No patented prior art has been found relating to this process. However, there have been a number of descriptions of basic flat polishing using the vibrating pan (“vibralaps”) in the lapidary literature. These processes all use flat-bottomed pans that have no local elevated areas. The flat-bottomed pans have flat or slightly concave bottoms. Even if the pan-bottom starts out flat, continued grinding may cause the bottom to become concave. These pans suffer from the deficiency that, due to the shapes and sizes of the some of the specimens being polished, pressure is never put on some of the areas being polished. It is well known that pressure on all areas of the specimens is required to completely polish a surface. FIGS. 13 and 13A demonstrate this. For small specimens in FIG. 13, it can be seen that the specimen bottoms make full, or almost full, contact with the pan-bottom. FIG. 13A shows that, for a larger specimen, the pan only contacts the outer edges of the specimen. Thus, only the outer edges of the larger specimen are polished. It is desirable that the diameter of the larger specimen being polished be as large as possible so that many more small specimens, which are cast into the larger specimen, can be polished simultaneously. Even if the pan bottom is perfectly flat as in FIG. 13B, the large specimen contacts a large distributed area so that no incremental area of the specimen presses very hard against the pan-bottom. This results in the surface being polished very slowly or not completely. The equipment and processes described herein correct this deficiency.